NY to spend $7.3M on college-in-prison program

Bard College celebrates their 157th Commencement, May 27, 2017, at their college in Annandale-on-Hudson.
Adam McIe for the Poughkeepsie Journal

ALBANY - New York will spend $7.3 million from bank settlements to expand college education programs in prisons, including the Fishkill and Wallkill correctional facilities.

Fishkill Correctional Facility(Photo: Journal file)

Seven colleges will begin, continue or expand offerings for prisoners at 17 correctional facilities across New York over the next five years as part of the College-in-Prison Reentry Program, a joint program between Gov. Andrew Cuomo's administration and Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance.

Cuomo and Vance unveiled the colleges and prisons Monday.

In Dutchess County, Bard College's prison program will continue in six correctional facilities, including Fishkill and Taconic at Bedford Hills, Westchester County, while New York University will provide courses at Walkill in Ulster County. Mercy College, based in Dobbs Ferry, will continue its presence at Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Westchester.

In all, there will be 400 to 500 new seats each year for college-education programs in state prisons, according to Cuomo's office.

"It has never been more evident that a college education is an important stepping stone to success and by partnering with District Attorney Vance, that success will reach those who never thought they could achieve it," Cuomo said in a statement.

Some colleges -- including Mercy and Bard -- already offered college courses to prisoners, though those initiatives were privately funded. Statewide, about 1,000 prisoners currently take college-level courses, according to the state.

Along with Mercy, Bard and NYU, the other participating colleges in the state's program are Cornell University, Medaille College, Mohawk Valley Community College and Jefferson Community College.

The state's program will only be open to prisoners with less than five years left on their sentence.

About 500 inmates have received degrees from Bard's prison program since it was launched in 1999, Bard Prison Initiative founder Max Kenner said.

The new funding "keeps programs like ours in business," Kenner said.

"We're a little college that operates with no student tuition, no endowment and no government money," Kenner said of the Bard Prison Initiative. "It's a perpetual starvation budget situation, and funding like this made possible by this governor as well as the district attorney of (Manhattan) keeps our doors open."

But Lalor said he would have preferred the prisoners have to pay back the cost of the courses over time, with the upfront costs of the loan covered by saving money through finding efficiencies in the prison system.

"I don't think it's a problem to have education in prison -- I think it's a good thing," Lalor said. "I just think we have limited resources."